![Louis GAUFFIER, Vallombrosa and the Arno Valley Seen from the Paradisino [Le couvent de Vallombrosa et le val d’Arno vus du Paradisino] 1796](http://nga.gov.au/PodCasts/GUIDES/EXHIBITION/FrenchPainting/NGAPodCasts.jpg "Louis GAUFFIER, Vallombrosa and the Arno Valley Seen from the Paradisino [Le couvent de Vallombrosa et le val d’Arno vus du Paradisino] 1796")
Louis GAUFFIER, Vallombrosa and the Arno Valley Seen from the Paradisino [Le couvent de Vallombrosa et le val d’Arno vus du Paradisino] 1796
Update: 2007-11-26
Description
Louis Gauffier’s Vallombrosa and the Arno Valley Seen from the Paradisino is a landscape that brings together a series of often competing influences and sources: close attention to the details of nature; Neo-classicism’s mathematical description of space; ‘nature’ as it was described at the time by the poet and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau; and, in turn, the Romantic ideal of man and nature in harmony.
By bringing these disparate sources together, Gauffier produces a theatricalised landscape. The terrace in the foreground acts as a stage, beyond which the landscape is both warm and awesome, a place to wander and find one’s self, as the monk on our left indicates. The landscape unfolds in a series of layers, where men might come to recognise their democratic sensibility and their individualism.
By bringing these disparate sources together, Gauffier produces a theatricalised landscape. The terrace in the foreground acts as a stage, beyond which the landscape is both warm and awesome, a place to wander and find one’s self, as the monk on our left indicates. The landscape unfolds in a series of layers, where men might come to recognise their democratic sensibility and their individualism.
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